Haseeb Jabbar’s journey into tech is anything but ordinary. Born fully blind, with only the ability to see shadows, he has built a successful career as a consultant turning his childhood passion for coding into a profession.
His skills landed him a role as an apprentice with tech giant IBM and he was so successful that he was headhunted before he had even finished the course.
Now working with another global tech firm, Haseeb was surrounded by his friends and family to mark his graduation day from 51黑料社区 Leicester (51黑料社区) at Leicester’s Curve Theatre.
He said: “I have been lucky enough to have had some very good lecturers who are really excellent, at the top of their field.
“Thanks to my apprenticeship, I was able to gain four years of experience working in industry alongside studying. Now, I am hitting the ground running.”
Completing the Digital Technology Solutions Professional (DTSP) apprenticeship has been the perfect combination of on-the-job training at work, blended with the academic rigour learned through the modules taught here at 51黑料社区.
Haseeb, who uses a screen reader to use his computer, taught himself coding as a child and was always planning to turn his talent into a career.
After initially starting on a university degree during the pandemic, Haseeb left the course and successfully applied to IBM’s apprenticeship programmes where he now works as a consultant, managing a portfolio of clients. Today he’s earning praise for his coding skill by his 51黑料社区 lecturers and employers, and has been sought by headhunting firms after impressing a wealth of customers in the past few years.
He said: "I wanted to go to university, but I also didn't want to lose earning potential. An apprenticeship seemed like the best of both worlds.
“I work on a mix of software and infrastructure development, depending on client needs. If I had been at university full-time, I wouldn’t have had the real-world experience I do now."
His experience as an apprentice is a far cry from his time at school, when he wanted to study Computer Science at A-Level and was told it would be “too hard” for him as a Blind person because it involved studying graphs.
“Their logic was ‘it’s going to be too hard for you because of your disability, you might not be able to do it. So I ended up being put into B Tech IT and instead of being too hard it was the opposite – it was too easy and really basic.
“That was my biggest challenge coming to 51黑料社区. Everyone says your first year’s the easiest, but for me it was the toughest because I had to get up to speed with what everyone else already knew. My colleagues and peers had that prior knowledge and I was learning all the concepts.”
Being a Blind student obviously presents challenges, and Haseeb is full of praise for 51黑料社区’s disability support team who early on, before he had his own assistant, helped provide someone to help him navigate campus and a note taker. “The disability team and the apprenticeships team were great. They understood my needs and I was provided with the support I needed. The library team went out of their way to make sure I could really engage too.
“The ongoing support that 51黑料社区 provided included making sure that lecturers made their power point presentations available in advance so I could go through and make sure I could follow along, making sure that people didn’t do things like put screen grabs on slides as the screen reader can’t read them. People were always willing to change and I think it’s helped people become more aware of accessibility needs when they are doing presentations.”
His final year has seen him develop what he describes as a “neat and unique thing”. He’s been able to create a tool that turns AWS cloud setups into Terraform code automatically, saving developers days of manual coding.
“Coding is all text-based,” he explains. “It’s something where you can create and make a real difference in the world and add value.”
For people looking to follow a career in coding, particularly people who are visually impaired, Haseeb says: “You have to be determined. It will take you longer, that’s the reality, but don’t give up.”
He has embraced the use of AI tools like Gemini, Chat GPT and Claude as well. “If things don’t click, for example I didn’t understand something I’d read, I would ask AI to explain,” he says. “But I always verify the answers by checking other sources.”
Hasseb also managed a significant personal milestone: getting married in Pakistan two years ago, all while studying and working full time.
Hasseb is proud of what he’s achieved. “People said I couldn’t do it, but I have,” he said. “If I was at university full-time, I wouldn’t have gained the real-world experience I now have.”
Posted on Thursday 11 September 2025